Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-05-30/Features and admins

In the push to cite sources, participants in the featured article process continue to debate best practices for providing references in articles. Meanwhile, a new type of featured content&mdash;featured lists&mdash;has been created in the past two weeks, with criteria modeled on the existing featured article requirements. There are also 14 new featured articles, 10 new featured pictures, and 5 new administrators.

Featured lists
First came featured articles, then featured pictures, and now, featured lists. In the past, list articles have been nominated as featured article candidates, but rejected because they did not contain sufficient prose explanation. Filiocht proposed that lists should form a new category of featured content, alongside articles and pictures. Filiocht's idea quickly generated discussion about whether or not lists were featurable, and if they were, what the featured list guidelines should be. Others suggested that collections of content such as categories might also be featurable, but this idea faced more opposition.

Filiocht based the new featured list requirements on the criteria for featured articles, and the list requirements were amended and improved by ALoan and Dmcdevit, mandating that all featured lists be examples of the Wikipedia's best work by being useful, comprehensive, factually accurate, stable, and well-organized. Images are recommended, but are not required. To be promoted, consensus must be reached that a candidate list meets these standards, with at least four votes of support within 14 days. Discussion continues over the acceptable number of red links in a list; as some point out, a list of red links is not helpful for the reader, but conversely, red links encourage editors to add to Wikipedia's coverage. To date, no lists have been featured, but eight are currently candidates.

Featured articles
Discussion related to featured articles has lately focused on referencing and citations. A number of users have expressed a desire to see more stringent inline citation requirements for featured articles, but others are not pleased with the current methods, pointing out that they are not useful for the user or make the article too difficult to read.

Also being discussed is the increasing use of subarticles and how references on such articles should be included. Some suggested that the references from the main article be used, but others pointed out that that would require a rereading of the references to verify that their contents did indeed confirm the specific section of the main article. Another suggestion was formally referencing the main article in the subarticle, but this suggestion faced strong objection from several wikipedians.

Among the 14 total articles promoted were two by prolific featured content authors Maveric149 and Filiocht (History of the Grand Canyon area and Imagism, respectively). Imagism was lauded for its eloquence and excellent research, causing at least one user to wonder if Filiocht is a famous author outside of Wikipedia. Myxobolus cerebralis, Tamil people, Military history of Puerto Rico and Whale song also received abundant support, while others, like Habsburg Spain and Papal Tiara, were subject to more extensive discussion before promotion.

From earliest to most recent, the newly featured articles are: Welding, History of the Grand Canyon area, Imagism, Blue Whale, Dawson's Creek, Papal Tiara, WGA screenwriting credit system, Whale song, Military history of Puerto Rico, Hero of Belarus, Habsburg Spain, Grunge music, Tamil people, and Myxobolus cerebralis.

Featured article removal candidates Goa and Java programming language were both kept. The POV problems in Goa were largely judged to be insufficient cause to remove its featured status, and Java programming language improved greatly during the voting process. Currently, Computer security, Copyright, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nuclear weapon face having their featured status removed.

Featured pictures
10 pictures were featured, and Gold Coast (from The Spit) survived the featured picture removal process.

Admins
Following votes on Request for adminship, five users were made admins in the past two weeks&mdash;Clarkk, Arcadian, Wiglaf, Evil Monkey, and Oven Fresh. Clarkk and Evil Monkey were promoted unanimously, while the others faced some opposition, either by users with specific adminship criteria or by users with concerns about insufficient experience.

Also this week: Official positions &mdash; Time article &mdash; Rock rat &mdash; Election &mdash; Features &mdash; Vandal fighting &mdash; Substubs, templates &mdash; Trophy &mdash; T.R.O.L.L.